LawHelpNY.org provides legal information to New Yorkers who cannot afford a lawyer. LawHelpNY lists more than 600 free legal services projects and organizations with their contact and admission information, as well as more than 4,000 Know Your Rights and self-help resources covering 16 areas of law. LawHelpNY.org is also available in Spanish. The City Bar Justice Center (CBJC) provides free legal services to low-income New Yorkers through various projects. The CJCB is also committed to providing self-advocates with the support they need to successfully protect their legal rights. For more information, call 212-626-7383, Monday to Thursday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Friday 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., or you can request help online by filling out the online application form. I grew up in rural southeastern Virginia, in a small town on the Chesapeake Bay, and now live in Goldens Bridge, New York, with my husband and two college-aged sons. My legal career has been exclusively in the public interest in North Carolina, Long Island and Westchester.
I have been volunteering at Pace Women`s Justice Center for almost 6 years, calling the helpline once a week and representing clients in need in their divorces. I graduated from the University of Virginia in 1982 and Northeastern University Law School in 1987. (2) Organizations whose principal activity is the provision of legal services to the poor, provided that the funds donated are used for the provision of such legal services. Yes, retired lawyers under 22NYCRR § 118.1(g) are still “exempt” from reporting pro bono service details, but must file the anonymous report to confirm their exemption status. However, as of 2018, lawyers for legal service providers are no longer exempt from this reporting requirement. See below. The Empire State Counsel® program recognizes NYSBA members who have provided 50 hours or more of pro bono legal services in the past year, either through direct legal representation from a low-income/vulnerable person or by donating free legal services to an organization whose services are primarily designed to meet the legal and other basic needs of individuals with limited financial resources. or providing free legal services to an organization dedicated to improving the availability of legal services for vulnerable and/or low-income populations.
In addition to working directly with clients, Kelly coordinates and supports Steuben County`s Family Violence Review Team. DART is a multidisciplinary team focused on victim safety, perpetrator accountability and community education on best practices in responding to domestic violence and sexual assault. In this role, she helped promote best practices, such as the use of the risk assessment tool to identify high-risk domestic violence. At LawNY, she leads a working group for lawyers and paralegals who advocate for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, as well as other victims of crime. Most recently, Kelly moderated the Public Benefits Task Force. She has also been instrumental in applying for and reporting for federal, state, and local grants that help support LawNY`s work for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. The new anonymous report has three separate sections – IV, V and VI – to report on volunteer efforts. Division IV is mandatory for all lawyers, except those who are exempt; Sections V and VI are optional for all lawyers. This section also gives lawyers the ability to report legal services provided for the common good at a rate well below their normal billing rate. While we have proposed a billing discount rate of at least 40% for this purpose, this figure is only a suggestion. Lawyers can report services at a lower discount rate if they wish. (Do not include fees that should be billed and collected, but could not be collected.) Jason Moff is a special counsel in the litigation department at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP.
As part of his pro bono newsletter, Jason has played a key role in virtually every major LGBTQ litigation his firm has undertaken, including a number of cases that established recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages in New York State. a series of amicus curiae briefs on behalf of established religious interest groups in Windsor, Perry and Obergefell and their descendants, as well as several Federal Court of Appeal cases that led to Obergefell; two separate cases before the New York Court of Appeals establishing the right of non-biological parents to apply for custody or access after the dissolution of same-sex relationships; and a lawsuit on behalf of LGBTQ asylum seekers who obtained an injunction against the application of the 2020 federal rule that would have severely restricted asylum facilitation avenues.